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Ralph and Katie centres around a young newly-married couple with Downs Syndrome, played by Leon Harrop and Sarah Gordy (The Long Call), who sacked their support worker.
They hire Danny (Dylan Brady) as a replacement, who Ralph knew from school. However, enter Pooky Quensel (The Trick) as Ralph’s mum, and she doesn’t trust Danny, because of his past, and past interactions with Ralph. Somehow, his stock-in-trade of magic tricks won’t cut it for her.
The first of six episodes sees the newlyweds putting on a spread for their friend, Emma (Jamie Marie Leary), who was meant to be coming for dinner with boyfriend, Gary… before her dumped her. You do have to stretch credibility when they offer the chance to her to stay over with them, even though, surely if Gary dumped her, he would be the one moving out? Or they’d just learn to get on for a while before one moves out, because they’re adults?
Meanwhile, Craig Cash plays Brian, their rather peculiar next door neighbour, offering to be part of Ralph’s “circle of suport”, despite Ralph not being very impressed with this concept.
Overall, I’m not exactly wowed by this. I get that it’s a issue-driven drama, and wanting to bring Down’s Syndrome into a primetime drama, but the script feels more like something written for CBBC.
I understand this is a spin-off from The A Word. I only saw the first series because that was enough, and on looking things up, I see Ralph was in most of the episodes, while Katie only appeared in Series 3, but I’ve long forgotten about that drama. Additionally, Ralph and Katie is based on an Israeli series from 2010 called Yellow Peppers, described on IMDB as being about a “family that raises an autistic child in a rural village lacking any therapeutic resources”.
The series is six episodes, but one was enough for me.
Ralph and Katie begins on BBC1 on Wednesday October 5th at 9pm, with two episodes each week back-to-back. It’s not yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD.
I expect that as soon as the series begins its first broadcast, the whole series will be on the BBC iPlayer.
Director: Jordan Hogg
Producer: Jules Hussey
Writer: Peter Bowker
Cast:
Ralph Wilson: Leon Harrop
Katie Wilson: Sarah Gordy
Louise Wilson: Pooky Quesnel
Danny Hyde: Dylan Brady
Emma Hibbert: Jamie Marie Leary
Brian Denton: Craig Cash
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.